With the King's tournament concluded, the lords of every side could hardly wait to return to their own battlefields.
The wolves and trout would take revenge on the lions, for the sake of their war-ravaged people.
After the King's warning, even the ever-prosperous roses had no choice but to face their exposed underbelly and guard against the Ironborn's sudden raids.
The Tyrell column left King's Landing through the King's Gate, and Great Lord Eddard Stark, Great Lord Edmure Tully, and the others departed from there as well, bidding farewell to Ser Garlan and his companions.
The Northmen were bound for the Riverlands, while the men of The Reach were going home.
"May the old and new gods light our path to victory," Ser Garlan Tyrell said.
"May the Warrior protect us," Great Lord Edmure Tully replied. "We will go deep into the lion's den and kill the lion."
"Good luck to you, Great Lord." Ser Garlan Tyrell said farewell to the Northmen and the Riverlanders.
The two sides parted. Many guards were escorting Lady Olenna, the Queen of Thorns, in her great wheelhouse.
Ser Garlan Tyrell, "the Gallant," escorted his mother and his grandmother, Lady Olenna, the Queen of Thorns. Fifty knights rode on either side of the wheelhouse, green triangular banners flying from their Longspears.
Behind the fifty knights came the lords of The Reach. A strong wind swept through, tangling countless banners together in the air with a loud, snapping rustle.
Rose banners, swan banners, butterfly banners, grape banners, centaur banners, fox banners, green apple banners, red apple banners, silver Wyvern banners, and more.
The remaining elite veterans were in the hands of Great Lord Mace Tyrell, Lord Mathis Rowan, and Lord Randyll Tarly, ready to obey the King's orders.
Ser Garlan looked around. Among all those banners, it was indeed hard to see the banner of the King of the High Tower of Oldtown.
"Though my grandfather has not descended from the High Tower in many years, he still decides major matters. But... what a foolish decision." Garlan thought helplessly.
It was not that House Hightower had sent no one to the realm's grand gathering and the King's coronation. They had simply been so low-key that it seemed arrogant.
With the dragons reborn and royal power revived, if House Hightower still kept itself aloof like this, trouble would be hard to avoid.
At Maidenpool, the fleet of Gulltown took aboard some soldiers of the Vale, carrying them away from the Crownlands and back to the Vale.
Some elite veterans of the Vale remained behind. Under the leadership of Lord Yohn Royce, they would serve as strategic reserves together with the armies of the Stormlands and Crackclaw Point.
As for Dorne, the Dornishmen, who preferred to go their own way, still chose the overland route. They would not pass through the lands of The Reach, but continue home along the Boneway. The Red Viper took his paramour with him and left Tyene in King's Landing.
Their risk in the war was the smallest, because Dorne truly had little worth plundering. Deserts and barren bays made up most of it, and only a small strip of Dornish land could be called fertile.
...
Blackwater Bay lay calm and blue. Gendry heard the slow, heavy beat of drums and the gentle slide of wooden oars.
The warships' sails bore the golden quartered arms. But there was no wind on the sea just then, so their speed was much slower.
A fleet of warships escorted Gendry and Daenerys from the mainland to Dragonstone. They had set out from Duskendale, and the Blackwater Rush still held broken timber and remnants of war.
Gendry liked seeing the boundless blue sky. He had also grown fond of the faint salt smell drifting in from the sea. But the sea carried danger as well.
Storms at sea had always been terrifying. His grandfather, Great Lord Stephen Baratheon, had died in a shipwreck before Storm's End. At the time, Great Lord Stephen and his wife had crossed the sea as the Mad King's envoys, searching for a noble girl of Valyrian blood for Prince Rhaegar Targaryen.
When a storm came suddenly, riders prayed and horses screamed.
"Crow's Eye may be the greatest storm beneath the heavens, but I am a storm too," Gendry thought. This time, it would be a clash between two "storms."
The dragons began chasing one another beneath the clear blue sky. The closer they came to Dragonstone, the more lively they seemed. Dragonstone's fire element was extraordinary, and the dragons loved the place.
The dragons flew through the sky, competing with one another, circling again and again.
The black dragon Balerion began hunting directly over the sea. When flying fish broke from the surface, black-red flame spun out, and the black dragon swallowed the prey in one bite.
Balerion flew the farthest and was the boldest. At times, he even flew beyond human sight.
"If they stay on Dragonstone for a while longer, they will be larger than horses," Daenerys said.
Daenerys looked very happy aboard ship. She had rich experience at sea.
"Dragons never stop growing," the old knight Ser Barristan Selmy said. "Legend says that in the Seven Kingdoms, some dragons could seize giant monsters from the sea."
"This time, we truly are going to face Kraken." Gendry laughed. Crow's Eye would bring back real Kraken, perhaps more than one.
There were two of Daenerys's companions aboard as well, Margaery Tyrell and Sansa Stark. The two girls merely listened as they spoke of these ancient, uncanny things and did not interrupt.
"The Drowned God is an evil god. The Drowned God's power is full of slaughter. The Storm God is the same," the red priestess Melisandre said.
"Calling the winds belongs to the Storm God's power?" Gendry asked. The Storm God existed in different regions, but without exception, he was a cruel god.
"Some gods like it. The Storm God may be especially so," the red priestess replied after a moment's hesitation.
"Are there any side effects?"
"More killing, more sacrifice, more storms."
The red priestess's words made the skin crawl. After a blood sacrifice was offered, calling the wind meant still more sacrifice. And after one favorable wind, the rest of the time would bring great storms.
The people of the Three Sisters believed the terrible storms nearby were the result of the Lord of the Skies and the Lady of the Waves coupling, and they sacrificed dwarfs to the gods.
The Iron Islands believed the Storm God was the eternal enemy of the Drowned God. He lived in halls among the clouds, and crows were his servants. He laid traps to lure the Ironborn to their doom.
As for Storm's End in the Stormlands, even less needed to be said.
Legend said that in the Age of Heroes, the first Storm King, Durran, won the favor of Elenei, daughter of the Sea God and the Goddess of the Wind, and fell in love with her. Elenei's divine parents refused to acknowledge their love, but the two married in secret all the same.
The power of the heavens was dreadful. On the night of the wedding, the gods destroyed Durran's castle and killed all his kin and guests. In a fury, Durran declared war on the gods, and the answer he received was a great storm raging across his kingdom.
Each time Durran built a new fortress by the sea, the gods immediately destroyed it, until the seventh time.
"Ser Barristan, do you think House Hightower will listen to my advice?" Gendry asked Ser Barristan.
"Your command is a royal decree, Your Grace," Barristan said respectfully. "They will obey."
Margaery pricked up her ears. In truth, House Hightower's defiance and arrogance were neither very great nor very small. But this was not a time when she could speak.
Gendry smiled and said nothing. What needed saying had already been said. If House Hightower still failed to change its fate of destruction or surrender, then that would be the fate of the King of the High Tower.
"Hightower. I know they are among the wealthiest lords. Oldtown is the second-largest city, elegant and beautiful," Daenerys said, with a trace of longing.
"This time, it will be very hard for them to stay out of it," Gendry thought with certainty.
Crow's Eye would attack Oldtown not only because Oldtown was wealthy, but also because Oldtown might possess some super-magic power.
Stone beasts, sphinxes, perhaps even dragons hidden in the shadows by House Hightower.
So Crow's Eye was certain to attack Oldtown.
Whether Kraken or dragons, for two mighty forces to come serve House Hightower together was a kind of blessing in itself.
House Hightower had stayed idle for so long, yet it would still find it difficult to remain uninvolved.
"Bloodline. The power of bloodline." Gendry thought. He did have his cheat, after all.
But Crow's Eye seemed to have one as well. Crow's Eye claimed to have been to the ruins of Valyria, and he had at least gained several abilities: skinchanging, prophecy, calling winds, and summoning Kraken.
"Take your enemy seriously, and let your enemy underestimate you." Crow's Eye might think Gendry was a brute, a brute who only knew how to fight head-on.
But he would not understand Gendry's hidden cards: the Pyromancer and the runes.
"Lady Melisandre," Gendry said.
"I am here, Your Grace," the red priestess replied.
"I need your power to shield us from Crow's Eye's prophecy once the battle begins."
"As you command."
At that moment, the dragons flew back down from the high sky onto the ship. Each dragon had its own splendor and temper.
The black-red dragon, the green-and-Bronze dragon, and the white-gold dragon now fed on goats.
But once the dragons began eating calves, they would be able to show the first signs of their true power on the battlefield.
The dragons curled up on the ship, resting their heads on their tails.
The dragons were slowly growing. In time, their heads would be larger than horses' heads, and as their necks kept lengthening, they would look like pythons.
Their scales were too hot to touch, like stones and armor baked beneath the blazing sun.
"More runes," Gendry thought. Aside from the Bronze Shield, he suspected that Storm's End also held some kind of rune, a power that could isolate magic. He needed that very much.
Ahead, an irregular diamond-shaped island appeared.
Dragonstone had arrived.
***
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